food

Bill Yosses’ Carrot Cake

I’m thrilled today to offer a recipe from my friend Bill Yosses, who recently left the White House, where he worked for eight scrumptious years as the Executive Pastry Chef.  When the White House needed a new pastry chef in 2006, it was my job to locate and interview candidates, along with White House Head Usher, Gary Walters.  I liked Bill from the start.  He was calm, pleasant, and discreet.  (It was not uncommon for chef candidates – and people […]

travel

Keep Calm and Go to London… continued

Moving on from food to flowers, we took a day trip from London to Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home, and to Sissinghurst, one of the most renowned gardens in England.  Sissinghurst is known for its White Garden, and it was lucky coincidence that we happened to be there just as it was beginning to bloom.  A green thumb must be part of the collective English consciousness, because everywhere we went there were gorgeous flowers – like these at the flower stand […]

travel

Keep Calm and Go to London

Just to show that we Yanks have no hard feelings about that pesky Revolutionary War business, I want to share some photos from a recent trip to London. In my opinion, the food in London is some of the most inventive and delicious in the world.  On this particular visit, we sampled a wide range of London’s culinary delights: a country gastropub, a whimsical teatime, a champagne lunch, and the always-amazing Ottolenghi; I could have stayed for months and barely […]

formalities

Plane and Simple

There’s a saying that you learn good manners from those who have none. I was reminded of this on a recent plane flight.  The big passenger seated in front of me fell into his seat like a dead weight, launching the open bottle of water on my tray table into my lap.   As he organized himself, he stretched his head backward over the top of the seat, leaning back so my face was less than a foot away from his […]